President Richard Nixon declared a “war on cancer” when he signed the National Cancer Act in 1971. When my grandparents were my age, cancer was never discussed, and it was almost always a death sentence.

Things have changed in the past 40-plus years. I know of at least a dozen cancer survivors in my group of friends and family. It seems like everyone I know who has been diagnosed with cancer has come through treatment successfully…the first time.

That’s the problem with cancer that all our scientific breakthroughs haven’t been able to solve. Cancer keeps coming back.

A client’s granddaughter was in remission for a whole year, but her brain tumor is back, and the doctors say there’s nothing they can do.

A friend who’s a breast cancer survivor wasn’t able to come to a home party I had over the weekend, because her cancer is back, in her bones now, and she can’t walk.

I am angry. These people worked so hard to beat cancer, they thought they had done it, and boom! Cancer is back.

I am scared. I don’t want my loved ones having to look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives, wondering when the next attack is going to come.

How far have we really come in the “war on cancer”? Is it even a war we can win?

Thursday, June 28, 2012 will go down as a great and proud day in US History thanks to the boldness, bravery and courageousness of the US Supreme Court for upholding President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, known formally as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

I’m very happy, excited and relieved now that the Supreme Court has finally voted to uphold the health care reform law today. Out of all those emotions, I feel more relieved because I realize that at some point or time in our lives, every single one of us will need health care whether it’s for a regular check-up, emergency care or treatment for a lifelong and/or deadly illness, infection, virus or disease. With this ruling, Americans no longer have to worry about whether or not they can afford coverage if they need care or treatment.

Thanks to this historic and momentous decision, individuals and their families suffering from illnesses, sicknesses and diseases will no longer be flat outright denied health care coverage, denied treatment because they have a pre-existing condition, charged far more than they can afford for necessary and basic treatment and forced into bankruptcy to pay for lifesaving care.

Not only will it benefit the 44 million people in this country who have no health insurance and the 38 million people who have inadequate health insurance but it will also ensure that when we are patients (God forbid), we can spend more time, energy and focus on getting better, instead of stressing out and worrying about whether or not we can pay for care we need to get better..

All in all, I feel very uplifted now that this law was upheld because I can now rest assure knowing that the Supreme Court has finally ensured that millions of individuals and their families will now have access to affordable and quality health care they deserve, want and need for many years to come.

Is it just me or is anyone else feverishly biting their nails waiting on the US Supreme Court’s decision sometime Thursday on the legality of President Obama’s signature domestic policy initiative, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or know to Republicans as “Obamacare”?

Two years after its passage, the Supreme Court will finally announce their decision on whether or not it’s constitutional and you bet cha, millions of people will be eagerly watching, listening and waiting to either let out screams and tears of joy or of disappointment, depending on the outcome they were hoping for.

Me, I truly hope that the Supreme Court Justices, set aside their differences but more importantly, their political affiliations and do what’s right for the 44 million people in this country who have no health insurance and the 38 million people who have inadequate health insurance.

I pray and hope that they keep the law and its mandates intact and find it constitutional!!!!!!

I need a good reason to rip off my shirt and run up and down East Main St with tears of joy and happiness running down my face, screaming and yelling praises to God and thanking him for truly blessing us this day.

No doubt, yesterday’s health care vote will be all the chatter in the days ahead as conservatives, especially, lament what they see as the march towards complete government control.The right will point to the doom and gloom of this legislation and the left will exhort us to “move beyond” all this to new issues.

According to most polls, the majority of Americans did not want this health care bill as it stood.Almost everyone wanted reform; but few of us wanted it in the form we got it.But we don’t live in a pure democracy.We live in a representative democracy.So if the American people are unhappy with the results of last night’s vote, they only have themselves to blame.

It is always easy to point the finger, to blame others—those incompetent politicans, etc., etc. But we are the ones who elected our senators and representatives. Their incompetence (if that is what it is) is a reflection of our own incompetence.Mr. Obama and the democrats ran on health care reform and won the election.It should not surprise us that we got it.

Over the past 50 years or so, this country has gradually become more and more of a welfare state, a protectionist society where fear and government dependence has replaced personal risk and strength and where suffering, once believed to be the prerequisite of personal and national greatness, has been virtually outlawed. How long we can sustain this is anyone’s guess.

But maybe this is the way it should be.After all, as Louise Slaughter suggested, who wants to wear their dead sister’s teeth?

Bipartisanship is over-rated these days.The idea that politicians from two philosophically diverse parties can sit around a table and come to agreement about serious problems facing our nation or our state is absurd.

Indeed, long term success in politics is related to one’s ability to compromise.But bipartisanship as a political or legislative process is not meant to exist comfortably within our democratic republic.Case in point—the election process is one of the most partisan institutions we have.

There are times when we can legislate across party lines.This happens most I think in local governments where the stakes are not as high (consider the strong republican support for Mayor Duffy or the democratic support for Maggie Brooks).But on philosophically charged issues that have profound consequences for a large number of Americans, winning the debate and winning the vote (majority rule) are what ultimately counts.

There are several reasons why Americans and New Yorkers have been Fed Up with Albany and Washington in recent years.One is that we expect change too quickly.Our political system was designed to move at a snail’s pace.We lament the red tape and the politics of it all.But these are important safeguards that keep us from the tyrany of the immediate.

Another reason we are Fed Up is that we assume our government is supposed to do what it was never really designed to do.I am not suggesting that we can turn back the clock to the days of Jefferson; but we did not intend government to provide for our retirement, give us health care or automobiles or washing machines; the government was not designed to stimulate the economy by providing us with energy efficient furnaces; it was not designed to provide us with cheap and risky morgtgages. And the constitutional areas in which it is expected to legislate, such as its responsibility to protect human life, it has failed miserably in recent years.

We’ve come to expect government to do what was formally the sphere of other institutions such as religious institutions and the private sector. And you can be sure that if we do get health care, the entitlement mentality will not stop there.I, for one, am looking forward to the day when it is considered a fundamental human right to have a lakeside cottage.

Our government is designed to protect us from ourselves, from our impatience and from our greed.Change happens not when people sit down at a table and compromise their principles to create something that ultimately no one likes.Real change, significant change happens when our representatives win debates and win votes.So to the majority Democrats, go for it.If you can do it legally, push health care through as fast as you can. And to the minority Republicans, if you can stop it, don’t be timid; embrace the power of “No”. The people will sort things out on election day.

In the eighteenth century, Voltaire argued that tolerance is not some mamsy pamsy notion that everyone is right; he said that true tolerance is witnessed in the heat of debate when people of opposing views hash it out in ways that are civil and legal. Tolerance, in other words, requires real conviction about what is true and right.

We are Fed Up most when politicians put bipartisanship over principles, when they seek to make nice because they lack the intellectual and rhetorical capacities to make sound and convincing arguments that win a majority consensus.

Forget about bipartisanship.Let the system work as it was intended to work, lest we kill ourselves in the haste for anything new.

A lot of pundants and blog-o-commentators these days are assuming that November 2010 will bring deep trouble for Democrats in Congress. House and Senate loses are predicted to unseat the Reid/Pelosi reign that has seen some of the most partisan bickering since, well, the Republicans were in control.Whatever your take on all this, “Good Enough” is not what anyone expected from the election of 2008.

Midterm elections do tend to oppose the party of the sitting President, and the closed door Democrats-only mindset with regard to Health Care (the biggest piece of legislation since the Ten Commandments) does not exactly reassure us that adults are in charge in Washington.

But I think this “Mission Accomplished” commentary is a bit premature.A lot can happen between now and November.Certainly, Tuesday’s Senate election in Massachusetts has a lot of Democrats biting their nails as everyone gazes into their political crystal balls.If Republican Scott Brown wins, we know the world will shortly implode.

But at the end of the day, what we think in January has little to do with the mood in November—and we all know the way in which campaigns and crises (invented or real) have a way of influencing moods right before an election.Sadly, one can predict that the crisis in Haiti will have political ramifications, like it or not, come November (have we forgotten Bush and Katrina?).

But also I think a lot of pundants fail to appreciate that it is not just liberal Democrats who are less than satisfied with “Good Enough.”Republicans too, and especially the conservative base, are not exactly convinced that they have competent and courageous alternatives.Relying on Republicans to hold their noses in the voting booth is never a good campaign strategy.

I can’t believe I am thinking about November already; but I can’t help it.And what else is there to do on these cold January days.Burrr.

Apparently Democrats are willing to go it alone as they attempt to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the health care bill. They have no intention of using a House-Senate Conference Committee that usually deals with cases where two bills need to be merged. The hope is that they can get something to the President to sign before the State of the Union address later this month. You can find the report here. This will be the Reid, Pelosi and Obama Health Care Bill created behind closed doors and touted as the bill that the “American People” want.

In case you have forgotten, this is the pass-it-in-principle-first-and-work-out-the-details-later health care bill. It is a bill that a recent D&C editorial suggested was “Good Enough” which, I have to admit, is a rather sad commentary on the signature legislation of the new Obama administration.

This partisan legislation is far from “Good Enough” and many of us know it.According to a Dec. 30 Gallup.com piece, “Americans have less faith in their elected representatives than ever before.”Sounds like a lot of Americans (not just New Yorkers) are Fed Up with Albany-like legislators in Washington.

In spite of the impotence of the Republican leadership, Republicans have put forth some worthy ideas that, at least, should have been part of this health care bill: tort reform, interstate insurance competition and greater state autonomy in health care.None of these are silver bullets, but some level of compromise would have shown us that Democrats in Congress are not as arrogant as the Republicans were when they were running the show.But no such luck—what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.And we, the always-supportive “American People” will be left holding the bill these children create.

Editorial Board

has, for the past 18 years as Editorial Page editor, been responsible for producing more than 5,100 daily Editorial and Speaking Out pages. He started his journalism career in Cleveland shortly after graduating from Howard University in Washington, D.C. Along the way, he has had career stops in Denver, Orlando, Fla., and White Plains. But unquestionably, he says, some of his most rewarding years as a journalist have been here in Rochester, being a part of positive change. That change has included reforms that followed an aggressive "Challenging Albany" campaign, greater public awareness and pushback against the coarsening of our culture, and strides being made to make this region a destination community.

I joined the Democrat and Chronicle in December 2011 as digital opinion editor, a position that combines traditional editorial responsibilities with the fostering and promotion of online conversation across a number of digital platforms and social media.

I bring to the position some 25 years of media experience in the Rochester-Finger Lakes region, having served as managing editor at Messenger Post Media, where I wrote columns, editorials and blogs, among an array of other newsroom duties.

I'm a lifelong New Yorker who has called Long Island, the North Country and, now, western New York home.

When I'm not in a newsroom or in front of a computer, I'm usually enjoying time with family or lost in a book.

became editor of community partnerships and niche content in November 2011, a position new to the Democrat and Chronicle. She is charged with increasing community engagement across all platforms, web and print. Sutter also has served as deputy editorial page editor, managing editor and general manager/custom content at the Democrat and Chronicle. She has worked as a reporter or editor for newspapers in Iowa, Illinois, Florida, South Carolina and Elmira, where she was executive editor of the Star-Gazette. She holds a master's degree in media management and a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

I have been with the Democrat and Chronicle since 2006, when I was hired as letters editor. In 2008, I shifted into the role of community conversation coordinator. Most of my time on the job is spent reading and editing the thousands of letters to the editor we receive each year. I love learning about a wide variety of subjects every day while fact-checking letters. Aside from editing the letters, I also monitor reader comments posted on our website, and write editorials, blog posts and tweets.

I am a lifelong reader of the D&C, so I’m particularly honored to lend my voice to the Editorial Board. As a registered conservative and strong advocate of free market economics, it is likely that I will bring an alternate view to the discussion, so I applaud the D&C for asking me aboard.

My passion about economics and politics first emanated from our family dinner-table discussions growing up in Brighton, where no topic was off limits. After graduating from Brighton High School and then from Middlebury College as an economics major, I started my career with Case Hoyt, a once nationally recognized printing company based in Rochester. I relocated to Philadelphia, Washington and then Boston to attend Harvard Business School before happily moving back home just as my wife and I were starting a family.

I have actively engaged in various volunteer leadership roles at the Wilmot Cancer, St. Thomas More Church and now Rochester Prep Charter School and the Kilian Schmitt Foundation.

Personally, my wife, Caroline, and I have three grown children who have all left the area for college as well as to start their work careers.

I have lived in Rochester, both in the city and the suburbs, for most of my life. I have a degree from Roberts Wesleyan College in religion and philosophy, and I currently work for the Volunteers of America as a case manager for families who receive the Shelter Plus Care housing grant.

I live in the town of Chili with my husband and my sons, Gavin and Troy. Spending time with them is my favorite thing to do. My husband, Scott, owns a small sales and marketing company.

I love Rochester and am actively involved in the community. I serve on several boards and committees, including the Chili Parks and Recreation Committee. Recently I accepted the role of president of the Monroe County Republican Women (a non party-funded organization). Lastly, I am the director of The Bridge, a developing nonprofit that promotes sustainable homeless outreach efforts and organizes bipartisan discussions on issues related to poverty.

I am passionate about seeking out lasting solutions to poverty and bridging the political and cultural gaps. Find me on Twitter (@annaiseman), Facebook, or in future D&C discussions.

Board of Contributors

I manage an educational project for RIT, and teach as an adjunct professor at Nazareth College and the Warner School of Education. In an earlier life, I directed a modern dance company and worked as a teaching artist in schools. I hold a PhD in education with a focus on arts, curriculum and teaching. My areas of interest are education, politics and the arts. I plan to share perspectives on the current changes taking place in the field of education, and have a special interest in political art. I hope to stimulate good discussions in these areas through blogging and guest interviews.

My name is Makenzie Marino and I'm a 16-year-old junior at Our Lady of Mercy High School. I've been writing since I was 7. Writing is my passion; it's the way I express myself and my creativity. As a member of the board I hope to educate people in Rochester on events going on in our area and also bring to people's attention topics that maybe they'd look over otherwise. Also, I hope to learn things myself and be educated by other board members, and by visitors that will be showing up to the meetings. I hope to bring forth positive energy and educate people around me.

I was born and raised in central New York. I earned a bachelor's degree from SUNY Brockport, and now gladly call the Flower City home. I’m a married mother of three young children who keep me on my toes. I write a Blog, From Playgrounds to Politics, which often focuses on hot-button topics as well as about parenting, education, current events, political punditry and entertainment news. I have blogged for the Democrat and Chronicle for several years, focusing local issues and public schools. Follow me on Twitter @Mango1531. As a Board of Contributors member, I hope to write in no-holds-barred style about social topics within our community.

I’m a transplanted New Englander, who has resided with my family in Rochester’s 19th Ward for over 20 years. I left a career in book publishing when I moved from the Boston area, and then got my master’s in education at Nazareth College. I have taught in local schools and am currently an adjunct teacher at The Strong’s National Museum of Play. I write fiction and memoir, volunteer in my neighborhood library, love to travel, coordinate an Exploring Post in health careers, and am a staunch advocate for children.

I retired as Rochester’s commissioner of Community Development in 2009. I’m the co-founder of Eugenio María de Hostos Charter School and serve as the volunteer CEO/chairman of the board. I also serve on five other boards. I was president and CEO of Ibero-American action League from 1993 to 2006. From 1987 to 1990, I owned and operated a Super Duper in the city, and worked briefly as a Spanish teacher. I have a bachelor of science degree in social service administration from SUNY Empire State College and a master’s degree in education from The College at Brockport. I am the author of “Journey of Puerto Rican Jíbaro,” a memoir.

As a life-long resident of Rochester, I am honored and humbled to be selected for the Board of Contributors. It is my hope that through this forum, I will have the opportunity to engage in dialogue that will uplift, inspire and challenge others to contribute to the economic, social, emotional/mental and spiritual health needs of Monroe County’s neediest residents. It is disheartening to me that Rochester is one of the poorest cities in this nation. We all have a part in this universe to offer a hand up and not a hand out. I’m married to my high school sweetheart and we are blessed to share three awesome children.

I work as a shipping and receiving clerk in Rochester. I look forward to being on the Board of Contributors and taking part in discussions of issues facing Rochester in 2014. I intend to add a pragmatic, moderate voice and concentrate on solutions and successes. Beyond the liberal/conservative gridlock there are pragmatic solutions upon which a majority can agree. The moderate majority is not as vocal as extremists to the left and right and this makes moderates easy to ignore. I look forward to being part of the Democrat and Chronicle's effort to contribute to the quality of life in this community.

I grew up in the Rochester area, attended PS35, graduated from Brighton High School, then attended SUNY College at Geneseo and the University of Chicago and earned his PhD at Northwestern University. A lifelong educator, child advocate and bestselling author of books and articles on leadership, collaboration, and education reform, I’ve been a middle school teacher, high school coach, school board member, college professor, dean of education at four universities, distinguished visiting scholar, community-based and regional nonprofit executive, education advisor to Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and associate superintendent of education for the State of Ohio. I currently am vice president for community programs at the Rochester Area Community Foundation.

As an active Community Member on the Democrat and Chronicle Editorial Board in 2013, and a division sales manager of a consumer company prior to that, I hope to stay involved with current events on the Board of Contributors, weighing in with my unique perspective on issues and headlines in 2014. A former United States Marine Corps Officer, and current retired "East Side Suburbanite," I feel that my "conservative-leaning" voice represents a part of the community that deserves to be heard.

I am a lay associate pastor at Spiritus Christi Church and a nurse of 28 years. In my role as associate pastor, I lead racial justice work, welcome new members and facilitate diversity within our ministeries. I am looking forward to being a board contributor so that I might engage in the conversations and topics this community most cares about to forge unity. It is my hope that, together, we join our visions and perspectives to examine what is, and lean in to shape ultimately what could be. If we do that I am hopeful that we will embody the "One City" Rochester mantra we all envision.

I am a third-year journalism and political science student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Being a native of Rochester has carved within me a passion for urban life and a desire to fully understand the complexity of the many issues Rochesterians face. I care most about education, youth, race and poverty, and have blogged for the Democrat and Chronicle’s Unite Rochester initiative. I am very excited to be offering my voice through the Board of Contributors and I hope to spark some great conversations with the rest of my community.